RFI-2027-DES-01-NECSES: New England Child Support Enforcement System (NECSES) Technology Evolution

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION
FOR
New England Child Support Enforcement System (NECSES)
Technology Evolution
RFI-2027-DES-01-NECSES
RELEASE DATE: 9/18/2026

New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services
New England Child Support Enforcement System (NECSES)
Technology Evolution
Request For Information
1. Overview and Purpose
1.1. Overview
The New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services (the "Department" or
"State") is issuing this Request for Information (RFI) to solicit information from qualified
vendors and solution providers regarding capabilities, approaches, recommendations,
and strategies that support the long-term viability and continued evolution of the New
England Child Support Enforcement System (NECSES).
NECSES is a mission-critical, federally certified application that supports the State's Child
Support Enforcement Program and its associated business operations. Over several
decades, the application has evolved to incorporate significant business functionality,
complex integrations, and regulatory requirements that are essential to the administration
of the Child Support Program.
While NECSES continues to support the State's operational needs, the application
currently relies on Java and Oracle Forms and Reports technologies, portions of which
have reached, or are approaching, the end of their practical lifecycle. The Department
recognizes the importance of addressing the resulting technical and architectural debt to
ensure the long-term viability of the application. Accordingly, the Department is seeking
strategies that reduce technology risk and improve maintainability, supportability,
security, resiliency, scalability, interoperability, and long-term sustainability while
preserving the substantial business value, institutional knowledge, complex integrations,
and federal certification embodied within the existing application.
Rather than prescribing a specific technical direction or pursuing a single large-scale
replacement, the Department seeks to better understand a broad range of architectural,
technical, and implementation strategies that enable NECSES to evolve through
manageable, low-risk initiatives while maintaining business continuity and federal
certification throughout the process.
The Department is interested in learning about proven technologies, architectural
approaches, implementation methodologies, and industry best practices that can support
the continued evolution of NECSES while minimizing operational disruption. The
information obtained through this RFI will assist the Department in evaluating potential
strategies for addressing technical and architectural debt, extending the application's
useful life, and positioning our program to meet future business, operational, and
regulatory needs.
1.2. Purpose
The purpose of this RFI is to better understand the current marketplace and gather
information that will assist the Department in establishing a long-term strategy for the
continued evolution and sustainability of NECSES.
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New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services
New England Child Support Enforcement System (NECSES)
Technology Evolution
The Department is intentionally not prescribing a specific future-state architecture or
implementation approach. Instead, the State seeks information regarding a broad
spectrum of innovative strategies that may support the application's long-term viability.
The information requested through this RFI is intended to help the State evaluate
potential approaches that:
Minimize disruption to ongoing NECSES operations, business processes, and staff
productivity throughout any approach.
Reduce technical, security and architectural debt of the application, supporting
infrastructure, and development practices.
Improve maintainability, scalability, performance, testability, and long-term
sustainability of the solution.
Enhance user experience, accessibility, and workflow efficiency for program staff
and stakeholders.
Enable secure, standards-based integration through modern APIs, event-driven
architectures, and interoperability frameworks.
Strengthen observability, monitoring, auditability, compliance, and security controls
required to support child support program operations and applicable federal and
state regulations.
Provide a practical and sustainable path away from Oracle Forms and Oracle
Reports while preserving required business functionality and regulatory reporting
capabilities, including pixel-perfect document outputs where necessary.
Support incremental, phased, or modular implementation approaches that allow the
State to realize business value early, reduce implementation risk, and minimize
operational disruption.
Leverage cloud-native, hybrid-cloud, or other modern architectural patterns that
support the long-term viability of the system where appropriate.
Position the State to respond effectively to future business, regulatory, and
technology changes with minimal rework or downtime.
The Department encourages respondents to recommend practical, innovative, and cost-
effective strategies that balance technical renewal with operational continuity.
Recommendations should consider approaches that reduce technical and architectural
debt, increase maintainability and improve security, preserve critical business
functionality, and position the application to meet future business and regulatory needs.
Respondents are encouraged to provide recommendations that may include, but are not
limited to:
Incremental replacement of application components.
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New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services
New England Child Support Enforcement System (NECSES)
Technology Evolution
Automated code conversion or code transformation.
Targeted refactoring or re-engineering.
Low-code or no-code development platforms.
Hybrid architectural approaches.
API-first and event-driven architectures.
Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) solutions.
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offerings.
Commercial products that leverage configurable business rules.
Full application replacement, where appropriate.
Other innovative approaches that respondents believe would best support the
Department's objectives.
This RFI is issued solely for discovery, market research, and planning purposes. It is
intended to assist the Department in understanding available technologies,
implementation approaches, industry best practices, and potential solution strategies.
This is not intended to result in a contract or vendor agreement with any Respondent.
2. Background
2.1. NECSES is the State of New Hampshire's Child Support Enforcement System and
serves as the primary platform supporting case management, enforcement activities,
collections, financial processing, federal reporting, and day-to-day program operations.
NECSES is a browser-based application with substantial business functionality
implemented through Oracle Forms and operational and regulatory reporting delivered
through Oracle Reports. In addition to its core functionality, NECSES integrates with
several mission-critical systems, including public-facing customer and employer
portals, an internal business intelligence platform, the OnBase enterprise content
management solution, and numerous federal and state partner systems. These
integrations are essential to the delivery of child support services, enabling the secure
and timely exchange of information among agencies, partners, employers, custodial
and non-custodial parents, and other stakeholders.
Furthermore, many of these interfaces support federally mandated child support
enforcement functions and reporting requirements. Maintaining these integrations is
critical to preserving program operations, ensuring compliance with federal regulations,
and sustaining the State's federal certification of the child support system. Any effort
must carefully account for these dependencies to avoid disruption to services,
compliance obligations, and certification status. While the current technology platform
has served the State reliably for many years, it presents increasing challenges related
to long-term maintainability, availability of skilled resources, user experience,
scalability, and compatibility with modern technologies and cloud-based architecture.
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New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services
New England Child Support Enforcement System (NECSES)
Technology Evolution
Today, NECSES supports more than 25,000 child and medical support orders and
consists of over 100 application screens, more than 200 reports, numerous interfaces,
automated processes, and business workflows that are critical to program operations.
2.2. Additional Considerations for Respondents
2.2.1. Continuity of Operations
Any approach should prioritize continuity of operations and minimize disruption
to case management, financial processing, enforcement activities, federal
reporting, and customer services.
2.2.2. Data Platform
NECSES currently utilizes Oracle Database technology as its system of record.
While the State is open to recommendations regarding future-state data
platforms and architectures, respondents should recognize that minimizing
unnecessary data platform changes is preferred unless a compelling business,
technical, operational, or financial benefit can be demonstrated.
2.2.3. Security and Compliance
Any proposed solution must support compliance with applicable federal and
state security, privacy, and regulatory requirements, including but not limited to
FedRAMP Authorization, IRS Publication 1075 for the protection of Federal Tax
Information (FTI), NIST-aligned security controls, State of New Hampshire
information security policies and standards, Federal Office of Child Support
Enforcement (OCSE) requirements, and any other applicable certification,
audit, and oversight obligations.
2.2.4. Accessibility
Solutions should conform to the requirements of Section 508 of the
Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
(WCAG) 2.2 Level AA or higher. Respondents should describe how
accessibility is incorporated into their design, development, testing, and quality
assurance processes.
2.2.5. Federal Certification Considerations
As a federally certified child support enforcement system, NECSES supports
critical federal reporting, interfaces, and program requirements. Respondents
should identify any considerations, dependencies, risks, or impacts associated
with maintaining federal certification and compliance throughout any effort.
2.2.6. Integration and Interoperability
NECSES currently exchanges data with numerous federal, state, and third-
party systems. Any approach should consider the complexity of existing
integrations and provide strategies for maintaining interoperability, minimizing
disruption to external partners, and supporting future integration requirements.
2.2.7. Reporting and Business Continuity
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New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services
New England Child Support Enforcement System (NECSES)
Technology Evolution
The State relies on a significant number of operational, management,
regulatory, and federally mandated reports. Respondents should address how
reporting capabilities, report accuracy, and required document outputs would
be maintained or enhanced during and after any effort.
2.2.8. Knowledge Transfer and Workforce Readiness
The State values solutions that promote knowledge transfer, operational
sustainability, and workforce readiness. Respondents are encouraged to
describe approaches for training, documentation, transition support, and
reducing long-term dependency on specialized or difficult-to-source technical
skill sets.
2.2.9. Public Records and Confidentiality
Responses submitted under this RFI may be subject to disclosure in
accordance with RFI Section 3.16, below.
3. RFI Questions and Additional Information
3.1. Note to Respondents:
3.1.1. The State is seeking information, recommendations, and industry best
practices related to the long-term viability and continued evolution of NECSES.
Respondents are encouraged to provide insights, lessons learned, proposed
approaches, and relevant experiences that may assist the State in evaluating
potential solutions.
3.1.2. Respondents may answer some or all of the questions contained within this
RFI. While comprehensive responses are encouraged, they are not required.
Please clearly identify each response by referencing the corresponding
question number.
3.2. Questions
3.2.1. Current Environment Assessment
3.2.1.1. Describe the tools, accelerators, methodologies, or assessment
techniques you would use to inventory and analyze the existing
NECSES application, including Oracle Forms, Oracle Reports, JAVA,
PL/SQL, interfaces, and other application assets.
3.2.1.2. Describe the strengths and limitations of your proposed assessment
approach.
3.2.1.3. How would your recommended approach identify technical, security,
and architectural debt, other obsolete technologies, and opportunities
for improvement?
3.2.2. Recommended Strategy
3.2.2.1. Describe your recommended strategy for ensuring the long-term
viability and continued evolution of NECSES.
3.2.2.2. What factors influenced your recommendation?
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New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services
New England Child Support Enforcement System (NECSES)
Technology Evolution
3.2.2.3. Why do you believe your recommended approach is preferable to
alternative approaches?
3.2.2.4. If you considered multiple approaches, please describe the
alternatives and explain why you selected your recommended
solution.
3.2.3. Long Term Viability
3.2.3.1. What approaches or patterns do you recommend for systems with
heavy Oracle Forms logic and why? Cite at least one (1) similar-scale
project and describe its outcome.
3.2.3.2. What are the top five (5) risks you foresee in this effort and how do
you mitigate each of these risks?
3.2.3.3. How will your approach maintain operations during system transition,
and if applicable, with a phased coexistence of legacy and modern
components?
3.2.3.4. What is your proposed target reporting stack and how will it meet
pixel-perfect and regulatory reporting needs now handled by Oracle
Reports?
3.2.3.5. Describe your recommended Continuous Integration (CI) - Continuous
Delivery (CD) and automated testing stack for this environment and
why it is a good fit.
3.2.3.6. What are your assumptions about the current environment that would
materially affect cost or timeline if incorrect?
3.2.3.7. What skill sets will the State need during and after this project and
what is your knowledge transfer plan?
3.2.3.8. What are your recommendations for a long-term maintenance
governance strategy?
3.2.4. Provide a high-level timeline with major phases and decisions gates for a
system of this size and complexity.
3.2.5. Identify any licensing or runtime dependencies introduced by your approach
and associated lifecycle considerations.
3.2.6. Describe how your solution supports Section 508 and WCAG 2.2 AA
compliance.
3.2.7. Describe how your approach supports IRS Publication 1075 requirements and
internal, Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement (OSCE), and ad hoc
audit evidence generation.
3.2.8. What metrics would you propose to measure success in the first six (6), twelve
(12), and twenty-four (24) months?
3.2.9. Please describe how your approach addresses:
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New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services
New England Child Support Enforcement System (NECSES)
Technology Evolution
3.2.9.1. Encryption in transit and at rest, key management, and secrets
handling.
3.2.9.2. Identity and access management, Single Sign On (SSO) integration,
Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), least-privilege Roles-Based
Access Control (RBAC) and Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC)
patterns.
3.2.9.3. Logging and monitoring, auditability of user and system actions, and
evidence generation for audits.
3.2.9.4. Boundary protections, secure coding practices, vulnerability
management, and third-party risk.
3.2.9.5. Compliance attestations applicable to your solution or hosting model,
such as SOC 2 Type II and FedRAMP for SaaS components.
3.2.10. Vendor Background. Please describe your experience with:
3.2.10.1. Systems facing similar end-of-life technologies.
3.2.10.1.1. Developing and maintaining public-facing customers
and employer portals and internal business intelligence
portals.
3.2.10.1.2. Providing solutions to improve the user experience for
both customers and staff, including mobile solutions,
solutions that are not browser-dependent, have print
capacity, customer alerts, worker dashboards, and other
features to support workforce efficiencies.
3.2.10.1.3. Providing enhanced statistical and reporting capabilities.
3.2.10.1.4. Developing and maintaining an online application.
3.2.10.1.5. Supporting State and Federal audits.
3.3. Sole Point of Contact
The Sole Point of Contact for this RFI, relative to this submission of requested
information is:
State of New Hampshire
Department of Health and Human Services
Sara J. Kelly, Business Administrator IV
Sara.J.Kelly@dhhs.nh.gov
Other state personnel are NOT authorized to discuss this RFI before the submission
deadline. The State will not be held responsible for verbal responses to vendors
regardless of source.
3.4. RFI Timetable
RFI Release Date: 09/18/2026
RFI Responses Due Date: 10/16/2026
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New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services
New England Child Support Enforcement System (NECSES)
Technology Evolution
The State reserves the right to modify these dates at its sole discretion.
3.5. Respondent Inquiries
3.5.1. All inquiries about this RFI, including but not limited to requests for clarification,
may be made in writing, citing the RFI page number and part or subpart, and
submitted to the Sole Point of Contact identified in Subsection 3.3.
3.5.2. Any inquiries must be submitted by e-mail; however, the Department assumes
no liability for assuring accurate and complete e-mail transmissions.
3.5.3. The Department may not acknowledge receipt of questions.
3.5.4. The Department will only respond to inquiries that are understood and relevant
to this RFI.
3.5.5. Statements that are not questions will not receive a response.
3.5.6. Any verbal answers given are non-binding.
3.6. RFI is not an RFP
3.6.1. This RFI is for informational purposes only and is not intended to result in a
contract or vendor agreement with any Respondent. This RFI is not a Request
for Proposals, Bids, or Applications. The State is seeking insight and
information prior to finalizing business, functional, operational, and technical
requirements before considering the publishing of a Request for Proposal
(RFP).
3.6.2. This RFI does not commit the State to publish a competitive solicitation or
award a contract. The issuance of an RFP or other competitive solicitation, as a
result of information gathered from these responses, is solely at the discretion
of the State. If an RFP or other competitive solicitation is issued, it will be open
to all qualified vendors whether those vendors choose to submit a response to
this RFI. This RFI is not a pre-qualification process.
3.7. Respondent Presentations and Discussions
The Department may request that Respondents provide presentations based upon their
submission. There is no guarantee that a Respondent will be asked to provide a
presentation. Any and all costs associated with a presentation shall be borne entirely by
the Respondent. Respondents may be requested to provide demonstrations to
expound upon their responses and proposed solutions. Respondent presentations
are for informational purposes only and do not confer any additional status upon a
vendor for any future or potential competitive solicitation or contract.
3.8. RFI Amendment
The Department reserves the right to amend this RFI, as it deems appropriate prior to
the submission deadline on their own initiative or in response to issues raised through
inquiries. In the event of an amendment to the RFI, the Department, at its sole
discretion, may extend the submission deadline. The amended language will be posted
on the Department Internet site.
3.9. Submission Instructions
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New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services
New England Child Support Enforcement System (NECSES)
Technology Evolution
3.9.1. Respondents are asked to examine all documentation and other requirements.
3.9.2. The Department requests that submissions conform to all instructions,
conditions and requirements included in the RFI.
3.9.3. Submissions should be received by the date and time specified in the RFI
Timetable, Subsection 3.4. Submissions may be emailed to the Sole Point of
Contact at the following email addresses:
3.9.3.1. To: rfx@dhhs.nh.gov
3.9.3.2. Cc: Sara.J.Kelly@dhhs.nh.gov
3.9.4. Please include the following information in the subject line: RFI-2027-DES-01-
NECSES (email xx of xx).
3.9.5. The maximum size of file attachments per email is 25 MB. Proposals with file
attachments exceeding 25 MB may be submitted via multiple emails.
3.10. Outline and Detail
3.10.1. The Transmittal Cover Letter - The Respondent shall submit a Transmittal
Cover Letter in the following manner:
3.10.1.1. On the Respondent's organization's letterhead;
3.10.1.2. Identify the name, title, telephone number, and e-mail address of the
person who will serve as the Respondent's representative for all
matters relating to the RFI;
3.10.2. Table of Contents - The required elements of the RFI response may be
numbered sequentially and represented in the Table of Contents.
3.10.3. RFI Responses - Responses to the RFI questions above must be limited to
twenty (20) pages of text. The page limit excludes the cover page and table of
contents.
3.10.4. Appendix (optional) - Respondents may include an appendix containing
exhibits and diagrams. There is no page limit to the appendix.
3.11. Non-Collusion
The Respondent's required signature on the Transmittal Cover Letter for a submission
in response to this RFI guarantees they have been established without collusion with
other vendors and without effort to preclude the Department from obtaining the best
possible competitive proposal in the event the Department publishes a Request for
Proposals or other competitive solicitation.
3.12. Prohibition on Collaborative Submissions
Submissions may only be submitted by one organization.
3.13. Property of the Department
All material property submitted and received in response to this RFI will become the
property of the Department and will not be returned to the respondent. The Department
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